Sounds: Clean Spill

It’s hard to believe that Santa Barbara’s Pat Curren — the 18-year-old son of a three-time world champion – was recently voted the most underrated surfer in the world amongst his peers. Inconceivable! Hasn’t anyone told Pat that through vanity and the right filter anyone can exploit themselves to stardom? Especially a handsome pro surfer. And doubly so if that handsome pro surfer is the lead singer of a band. But Pat is different. His humility is profound.
Recently Clean Spill, the soft-spoken quartet comprised of Pat on vocals, Geoff Shae on bass, Cameron Crabtree on guitar, and Charlie Fawcett on drums visited the SURFING offices, and they spoke to us about…well, not a whole lot. Much like Pat does in the water, Clean Spill let’s their music do the talking, and we highly recommend what it has to say. Seek out these gents at a venue near you — oh, and just a heads up, it might be smart to leave your girlfriend at home. –Dayton Silva

SURFING:How did Clean Spill come together?Pat Curren: It started out with just me, Cam and Charlie as a three piece, and we recorded our first album together. Then one day Cam was getting his haircut and Geoff just happened to be his barber. Geoff plays bass and we happened to need a bass player, so we brought him on board and we’ve all been jamming together since.

Do you find that your surfing and music influence each other?
For sure. I think surfing alters our minds, and that definitely influences the way we play music. Point breaks have a lot to do with it, too. Places like Rincon, where you can draw long lines; that influences the vibe we try to go for.

Your pops [Tom Curren] is musically driven. Did growing up in that environment inspire you to produce music yourself?
Yeah, my dad has been a huge influence ever since I was a little kid. I used to go back to the shed at our house early in the morning and just strum a guitar on my lap. Not even playing chords, just strumming all morning.

When are you the most inspired to write music?
We get really into it as a group when we haven’t played together in a while. I was just in Hawaii for a few weeks, and when we got back together we wrote two or three songs that were keepers. When we haven’t played in a while the creativity flows.

Is Clean Spill a hobby, or a career?
Hopefully both. We haven’t been playing together for long, but we’re all young and super inspired to take this as far as we can. We have so much fun playing together, and that’s all we’re really worried about right now.

What was the most fun you guys have had playing a show?
We played this big house party up in Isla Vista recently, which was just chaos. We were in my buddy’s front yard and there were probably two hundred drunk kids there. It was hard just trying not to get beer all over our equipment. We don’t even play heavy music, but it turned into a full mosh pit. Cam actually made out with a girl on stage in the middle of a song. He kept on playing though — he’s a good multi-tasker [laughs].